lauantai 24. kesäkuuta 2017

Now that Raspbian is available as an installable ISO for an x86 PC I decided to give it a go on my rusty old Dell Latitude X1.

With only 1 GB of RAM my Dell is able to run a Linux which consumes as little resources as possible. Raspbian is based on Debian Linux and is equipped with a modified and light window manager - suitable for my needs.

If you want to download the latest (summer 2017) Raspbian for x86 (i.e. Intel-compatibel processor) you can either use direct link or download a torrent file below:

Once the ISO was downloaded I burned it on a USB stick. Next, I booted Dell from USB. The setup was familiar from Debian. The only annoying thing was my wifi dongle was not recognized. So I was forced to use an external one from König. No problem with that dongle. The driver was automatically loaded and the dongle worked out-of-the-box.

Raspbian x86 on hard disk really made my day! I'm going to migrate to Raspbian on all of my platforms! It's already running on my Raspies and from now on on my PCs as well!

Burn the image on a USB stick and boot your PC from it. Choose Install from Boot Menu (look at the picture below). Run the setup familiar from Debian. When finished you have Raspbian up and running on your PC.

Edit 1: I did let Raspbian populate the hard disk entirely. I guess multi-booting is possible but I haven't tested it yet.

Edit 2: Not all devices work. For example wifi circuit might not be supported by Raspbian ( i.e. Debian).

Once the app is downloaded and installed connect your device and hope for the best. Keep in mind all your data will be gone when flashing Ubuntu Touch. Make sure you know how to restore your original OS in case something odd happens. UBports is maintaining a list of supported phones and tablets.

sunnuntai 28. toukokuuta 2017

There are many AI (Artificial Intelligence) assistants available like: Siri (Apple), Google Assistant, Amazon Echo and Cortana (Microsoft) which all are proprietary. The only open source AI-tool out there on the Internet is Mycroft. I wanted to give it a go.

Off I went and downloaded Picroft - a ready-made image - for Raspberry Pi 3, burned it on a microSD-card and booted Raspi3. Once Picroft was connected to the Internet a six character code was printed on screen. In order to make AI work Raspi3 needs to be paired at https://home.mycroft.ai using the code. After that I started to speak to Mycroft.

My equipment was not that up-to-date. It seems not all devices work. At first I tried a USB headset from Logitech with no luck. I had to use an old Microsoft web camera as microphone and a headset as speakers. After saying "Hey, Mycroft" Mycroft started listening and answering to me.

How was the conversation with Mycroft? Well, very basic I'd say. For example when asking:"Where is London?", Mycroft had no idea. The president of the USA was known by Mycroft. I wanted to teach Mycroft but I guess it's not allowed.

After a quick test all I can say is Mycroft works almost out-of-the-box on Raspi3. That's good news. I hope Mycroft will soon learn where London is somewhere on this planet. And it will - eventually.

PS Ah, you can install skills via command line and github! That way you can make Mycroft do more tricks. See skills that are available foe downloading (requires a free github account) : https://github.com/MycroftAI/mycroft-skills

Next, find out if your Android phone supports OTG (On The Go). Download and install USB OTG Checker from Play Store. Check your phone to see if USB OTG support exists.

After the above steps it's time to connect your phone with another phone. Use the USB OTG -cable and your normal USB charging cable. Thumbs up your friend's phone will be charged! And hey, not only phone-phone can be connected but phone-other devices as well (cameras etc).

I made a quick test with two phones; Samsung Galaxy S4 and Samsung Galaxy S (yes, an ancient phone from year 2010 running Android 4.4). And yes! It works! Galaxy S4 is acting as a charger for Galaxy S!

perjantai 17. maaliskuuta 2017

Yesterday I received a donation; a Fujitsu-Siemens laptop from year 2004 with the following specs:

512 MB of RAM

60 GB harddisk

1.6 GHz Pentium M

Windows XP on harddisk

There are many lightweight Linux distributions to choose from. Off I went and swiped out Windows XP with something lighter in mind:

Lubuntu didn't fit in since it requires PAE.

Debian Linux was also out of the question - it is way too fat operating system nowadays - at least for my tiny PC!

After those two there were not that many candidates left. Thank heavens Tiny Core Linux made my day! It loads super-fast, offers a simple yet usable desktop and the latest software (for example Firefox- and Chromium-browsers).

I'm testing Fujitsu-Siemens at the moment. Wifi (IPW2200) is built-in and supported by Tiny Core Linux. Localized keyboard is not yet configured but there are instructions available.

Edit: turns out one can install Puppy Linux on harddisk. I will try it next!

lauantai 11. maaliskuuta 2017

If you have a spare PC and would like to turn it into a Chromebook you have three differerent flavours to choose from. Let's see what these OSes have to offer.

Cloudready of Neverware is available for free for individual users. You can choose between 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Bear in mind not all PCs are supported. You can find the list of certified models here. Why would you choose Cloudready? There is a company behind the the distro so updates can be expected to happen. Download here: https://www.neverware.com/freedownload .

FlintOS is aimed at RaspberryPi 3 and PC. At it's early stages FlintOS is not ready for all PC users just yet. However the project is alive and growing rapidly. So a mature version for PC might show up any time soon. If you are familiar with Raspberry Pi 3 you might want to run FlintOS on both Raspi and PC. Download here: https://flintos.io/download/ .

Last but not least there is Arnold The Bat's ChromiumOS. Arnold has been offering his version of ChromiumOS long before Cloudready and FlintOS showed up. When nothing works try ChromiumOS. My 10 years old mini laptop accepted Arnold's version while rejecting Cloudready and FlintOS. Download here: https://chromium.arnoldthebat.co.uk/ .

It's pretty easy to download and install ChromiumOS (open source version of ChromeOS) on PC. In addition there are three different alternatives to choose from. So there is no need to buy a Chromebook but to pick up a version of ChromiumOS that suits you and start to play!

perjantai 13. tammikuuta 2017

Chromeboxes/Chromebooks are very easy-to-use computers. The only app you need to know is web browser. Eventhough Chromeboxes/Chromebooks are relatively cheap devices there is an even more inexpensive option available!

All you need to do is to download the image of Flint OS and burn it on an at least class 10 SD card (make sure your card is fast enough!). Fire up your Raspi, login and start browsing the web!

Too good to be true? Well, you can't expect Flint OS and Raspi 3 to run at the same speed as your laptop or desktop computer. In addition, Flint OS has so far only reached the version number 0.2. Flint OS on Raspi 3 is very usable but not for all of us just yet. However Flint OS will mature in near future. So you'd better keep your eye on Flint OS!

Edit: A new and more stable version 0.2.1 “Beetle” was released in February 11th!

keskiviikko 4. tammikuuta 2017

Pixel Desktop is the default GUI of Raspbian operating system made for Raspberry Pi. Recently Pixel Desktop was released for x86 platform. This means you can run the same desktop on your PC as on Raspberry Pi.

At the moment only Live image of Pixel Desktop is available for x86. You can boot up PC from USB stick but not install Pixel Desktop on your hard disk - officially. However, there is a work-around; Refracta Tools makes it possible for anyone to install Pixel Desktop on hard disk.

Next, burn the image on a USB stick (2 GB stick is big enough). Use your favourite app to do that. There are many apps to choose from; Win32DiskImager for Windows, command dd for Linux etc.

Finally, boot up your PC from Live USB stick. Once the graphical user interface is up and running look for System Tools -> Refracta Installer (see the picture below). You need to create and choose at least one partition for Pixel Desktop on hard disk. A wizard helps you and launches an app for partitioning. In the end of install you'll be asked to type in passwords for Pixel Desktop.

Aftermath

After setup you can run (in Terminal-app) sudo apt-get update and sudo apt-get upgrade to get the latest updates and to see if your PC is connected to the Internet.

For all you non-English-keyboard-users: different keyboard layouts are there for you to pick up. Browse Preferences -> Mouse and keyboard settings -> Keyboard tab -> Keyboard Layout button.

What if Refracta Tools doesn't show up? This happened to me. An old Acer ZG5 mini laptop just could not make it. I guess Intel Atom 1,6 GHz with 1 GB of RAM was not enough? No Refracta Tools anywhere eventhough I was able to boot up Acer from USB stick. Well, Asus EeePC 1025C made my day and was willing to receive Pixel Desktop and is now my number one laptop!

What if wifi doesn't work etc.? This, too, can happen. Bear in mind Pixel Desktop is there only helping you with your everyday tasks. It's Debian Linux under the surface that takes care of for example drivers. Off you go and look for help on the internet if your hardware fails. There are many Debian-concentrated discussion forums available.

An official installer of Pixel Desktop is arriving later this year (2017). Before that Refracta Tools and a derived version from Exton Linux help you to perform hard disk setup of Pixel Desktop.

lauantai 31. joulukuuta 2016

Since CyanogenMod is not out there anymore I decided to move on to LineageOS - the successor of CyanogenMod. So now my OnePlusOne (aka OPO) is running the latest nightly version of LineageOS. If you ever flashed your phone chances are you'll be using a re-branded OS in no time. However keep in mind you do all modifications AT YOUR OWN RISK!

So, happy ending! One more thing: OnePlusOne supports MultiROM which I've been using before. It seems the latest nightly version of LineageOS doesn't like MultiROM just yet! Or I don't know how make them co-operate ;D.

It's easy! Download and write the image (.iso) on a 2 GB USB stick. Boot your PC or Mac from USB and there you have it! Live mode only at the moment, I'm afraid. Please follow the detailed steps below:

Write .iso on a USB stick (at least 2 GB). Use your favourite application or command dd on Linux to do that.

Do not just drag and drop the .iso file inside your USB stick

In case you have a PC find out how to boot from USB stick. In my case it's button F12 but that varies; F1, Del etc... Mac? No idea, sorry.

Press Esc after boot. You have 5 seconds to do that!

Choose "Run with persistence". That way you can save your work on USB stick. Next time you boot Pixel Desktop from USB all your files are there!

Let's hope Pixel Desktop installs on PC hard drive one day. Meanwhile we have to cope with Persistent Live Mode.

My mini laptop is from year 2008 and has 1 GB of RAM memory. Raspberry Pi foundation promises Pixel Desktop runs on a PC with 512 MB of RAM. How does that sound? It definitely got to be tested!

So what's the point of running Pixel Desktop on x86? You can enjoy almost all of your favourite apps familiar from Raspbian! From now on you don't need to leave Pixel Desktop but go on using it on any platform!

lauantai 17. joulukuuta 2016

The latest LibreOffice 5.3 (beta) can be run with a different UI than we are used to. A ribbon, familiar from M$ Office, is hidden inside LibreOffice and is easily enabled. Here's how to do it. Please keep in mind that you do all modifications at your own risk:

First of all, get rid of older LibreOffice which you might have installed before or has been there as default (in Ubuntu Linux). Open Terminal:

sudo apt-get remove --purge libreoffice*

Download LibreOffice 5.3 (beta). Default tar.gz has all the deb-packages needed for an English/US install. No need to install localization packages:

Download the image which is delivered as a 7zip-package (~ 90 MB). If you don't have any tool to extract .7z -files, follow these instructions:

Open Terminal to get to the command line

Install p7zip-full package:

sudo apt-get install p7zip-full

To extract files with extension .7z :

7z e DietPi_RPi-armv6-(Jessie).7z

e stands for extract

Use either a graphical tool or command dd to write the extracted image (~ 550 MB) on an SD card. An example:

sudo dd if=DietPi_v136_RPi-armv6-(Jessie).img of=/dev/sdd

Attention! SD card is not always sdd!

Run DietPi on any RaspberryPi

It doesn't matter which RaspberryPi you have. DietPi runs on any Raspi! So get your gear ready and fire up your Raspberry Pi.

Once up and running you want to choose a server or two for your needs. Make sure Raspi is connected to the Internet. Let DietPi download and install automatic updates. Run DietPi-Software via the command line: dietpi-launcher or dietpi-software. Have fun!

sunnuntai 20. marraskuuta 2016

After some tweaking, trying and failing CyanogenMod 14.1 (aka Android 7.1) is finally running on my OnePlus One (later in text called OPO). If you decide to take the steps below don't forget to backup your phone! Keep in mind you do modifications AT YOUR OWN RISK!